My research focuses on the political economy of sustainable development. Specifically, I am interested in how institutions interact with local communities’ cultural and historical background to determine economic wellbeing and environmental quality. My current work focuses on events in Latin America’s history that offer quasi-experimental variation to empirically assess the effects of communal property rights systems, economic inequality, and fractionalization on sustainable development. My research expands to other areas within political economy and environmental economics, such as the agency problem within public bureaucracies and health impacts from exposure to air pollution.